Tucson, within the Territory of Arizona; that the Wm. L. Richardson is one of a line of vessels contracted for by Messrs. Wadsworth & Son of Alta California, to run between the ports of San Francisco, La Paz, Baja, California, and the station within the Rio Colorado, near its mouth, whence passengers and freight for the Territories of Arizona and New Mexico are conveyed as aforesaid, by the steamboat Esmeralda, to Fort Yuma, and to points beyond; that at the time the gun was fired on board the French man-of-war, he was entering the port of La Paz to discharge some ninety tons of freight before proceeding to the mouth of the Colorado to discharge the remainder of his cargo, and was wholly innocent of any design to infringe, or to permit any other, through his agency, to infringe any belligerent regulations, and that no blockade of the harbor of La Paz existed within his knowledge, nor had any notice ever been given that such a thing was contemplated. He further says that the said powder was entered as such in the usual and proper manner upon the Colorado river manifest. Subscribed and sworn to before me the date above written. GEORGE GOODRUM. I, the undersigned, consul of the United States of America for La Paz, &c., do hereby certify that the foregoing declaration and affidavit are true and faithful copies of the original on file in this consulate, the same having been carefully examined by me, and compared with said original, and found to agree therewith, word for word, and figure for figure. Given under my hand and seal of the consulate at La Paz, the day and year above written. [SEAL.] F. B. ELMER, U. S. Consul. [Enclosure No. 3.-Translation of No. 2.] PORT OF LA PAZ, MEXICO, October 30, 1864. I declare having seized on board the schooner W. Richardson, Captain George Goodrum, one hundred barrels of powder, against protest of the said captain. A. DE LA COUVE, UNITED STATES CONSULATE, I, the undersigned, consul of the United States of America for La Paz, &c., do hereby cer tify that the above declaration is a true and faithful copy of the original filed in this office, the same having been compared by me and found to agree therewith, word for word and figure for figure. [SEAL.] F. B. ELMER, U. S. Consul. No. 31.] Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: In the Gironde of Bordeaux, bearing date the 13th instant, and just come to hand, I find a note from the Danish consul at that port, of which the following is a translation: "MR. EDITOR: Your sheet of the 10th instant contains a note apropos of the Olinde affair, in which it is stated that this vessel had been sold by Mr. Arman, the builder, to Denmark, that she had paid for it, and that Arman only learned through the journals of the change of destination of the vessel, with which he had no concern. "Permit me to address to you the following rectification, which I beg you will have the goodness to insert in your next issue. The iron-clad ram built last year by Mr. Arman, and which left Bordeaux bearing the name of the Stoerkodder, has never been definitely sold to Denmark; the Danish government having, on the contrary, refused to accept a delivery of her. There has never been any question of paying her price, and she has been returned to her constructor, who has never ceased to have entire control of her. "Accept, sir, &c., "E. KIRSTEIN, The Gironde accompanied this letter with the following remark: "In respect to the announcements made in this letter we have only to state that they are in absolute conflict with the information furnished to us, and which we are bound to esteem correct." Mr. Adams telegraphed from London last evening that the Baltic was frozen over and no mail, which I suppose was intended to explain why I did not receive something more authoritative upon this subject through Mr. Wood from the Danish government in time for this mail. I am, sir, with great respect, your very obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, &c., &c., &c. JOHN BIGELOW. No. 34.] Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward. [Extracts.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: This being the day set apart by the minister of foreign affairs for the reception of the diplomatic corps on business, I profited by the opportunity to speak of the Stonewall case to him; with what results I will proceed to relate. I commenced by asking if anything had been done or projected by the minister of justice, to whom his excellency was good enough to inform me that the Stonewall case had been transferred, for the punishment of the persons engaged in equipping her within the waters of France. His excellency replied that as yet the minister of justice had made no report to him upon the subject; that the case was under investigation, and the moment any result was reached, that I should be apprised of it. I asked if there was no summary process in France, as there is in England and America, for arresting persons on "probable cause," to await the result of an investigation, assuming that if there was, there could be no difficulty in showing "probable cause" against some of the parties, especially J. Riviere, who was now in Paris, and those who took out the coal. His excellency, without replying very directly to this inquiry, said that the laws of France in commercial matters were generally pretty severe; that the subject had been committed to the minister of justice with a full statement of the information elicited by the investigation of the minister of marine, as well as that communicated by me; that judicial proceedings did not usually move with such rapidity as to yield any result in so short a time; and finally, that he would see or write to Mr. Barache again upon the subject. I urged him to do so with as little delay as possible. I said that the crime committed was of a character which all our people would comprehend, and the best evidence to their intelligence that the imperial government resented the outrage was the arrest and punishment of some at least of the offenders. I then expressed my regret that his excellency had not seen fit to entertain favorably my application on Sunday week for the benefit of his influence with Spain, and also that I had not been able to appreciate the force of his objections to such a step. His excellency replied that, with every disposition to oblige me, he did not see how he could untertake to police the waters of Spain; that he could understand perfectly how Spain could detain the Stonewall, for she was in Spanish waters, and how Denmark might intercede with Spain for her detention, for she exchanged a Danish for a confederate flag; but France stood in no such relation to the ship or to any of the parties as would justify her interference with the Stonewall in a Spanish port, nor could she without directly admitting, what he most explicitly denied, that she was a French vessel. He then recapitulated the history of the process by which he became satisfied that the ship had been sold to Denmark before he authorized her departure from Bordeaux. This I will not repeat, as he added nothing to what I have already communicated to you, except that the correspondence between him and the Danish government was conducted by telegraph. I then said that my request did not involve any decision on his part of the nationality of the Stonewall; that I was not yet prepared to discuss that question, and I hoped with his assistance it would never be necessary for us to discuss it. I simply assumed, what was now a fact of common notoriety, that a crime had been committed within the waters of France by the proprietors of the Stonewall against the laws of France; the perpetrators of that crime, or some of them, were easily identified; the Stonewall was the corps de delit. I only asked of the French government not to demand as a right, but simply to intimate a wish to the Spanish government, that the Stonewall should be detained to await the result of this investigation. I said I had reason to believe the Spanish government would be happy to have such a pretext for adhering to a line of policy to which it has already partially committed itself. I here at his request recapitulated briefly what the Spanish government had done, not doubting all the while that his excellency knew a great deal more about it than I did myself. I then went on to point out the analogy, which in my communication of the 5th instant I had not been fortunate enough to make apparent to his excellency, between the cases of the Rappahannock and the Stonewall. The former vessel entered a French port and wished to complete her equipment that she might go out and prey upon the commerce of a friend of France; his excellency tied her up in Calais and there she lies to this day. The Stonewall came into French waters to do the same thing, to complete her equipment, that she might also prey upon the commerce of the United States. No matter what flag she bore when she entered the port, what she proposed to do, what she actually did, was a crime against the laws of France. The Stonewall is now repeating the offence in the waters of Spain. France, in vindication of her outraged laws, can with perfect propriety request Spain to do what she has herself already done under similar circumstances, more especially as Spain, I was convinced, would welcome the co-operation of France in support of such a policy. His excellency listened to what I said with profound attention, and did not contest any of my positions, not even the analogy of the Rappahannock case, which he had questioned in his despatch of the 7th. He avowed the most earnest desire to co-operate with me in any practicable effort to arrest the career of this vessel, but he said he had no authority to assume any one guilty of a crime, when a colleague in the government was specially charged to investigate the question. If he were to instruct Mr. Mercier upon the assumption that a crime had been committed, he might be obliged to-morrow to countermand his instructions. He did not wish to move in the matter without something to shelter him from responsibility to his colleagues. If Mr. Barache would simply say to him that a crime had been committed, of which the Stonewall was the corps de delit, he then would be able to act. He said he would take occasion to see Mr.. Barache at once and ascertain the position of the case, and allowed me to infer that he would do all he could in the premises without compromising his own government. I repeated to him that it had been and was, no part of my purpose at this interview to discuss the nationality of the Olinde, now called the Stonewall, but simply to invoke his friendly co-operation with us in persuading Spain to detain the vessel if only for a few weeks, during which time events were likely to occur that would relieve us of any further trouble on her account. Here his excellency, while expressing entire willingness to do his best for us as soon as he could receive suitable assurances from the minister of justice, remarked that he had gathered from Mr. Mercier's communications that that gentleman had already allowed the Spanish government to see that the detention of the Stonewall would not be ungrateful to him. I have here given, I believe, the spirit of a long conversation, with the tone of which, on the part of Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys, I felt perfectly satisfied. I think the subject is one in dealing with which he is obliged by the political exigencies of his position to act with great circumspection; but so far as I could gather from his language, tone, and manner, he was fully impressed with the justice of what I asked, and I shall be surprised if he does not promptly manifest through suitable channels a new interest in preventing the escape of the Stonewall. I only hope his efforts may not be made too late. I am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, &c., &c., &c. JOHN BIGELOW. No. 46.] Mr. Seward to Mr. Bigelow. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, February 21, 1865. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of several despatches from you, relating to a piratical vessel which was built for the insurgents by Arman, ship-builder at Bordeaux, went under a sale, or negotiation for sale, to Copenhagen, came from that port to Honat island, received an armament and a crew there from an English steamer, and coal from a French steamer, and then took her departure in a southwesterly direction. These despatches are: No. 13, dated January 30th; No. 14, dated January 31st; Nos. 16 and 17, both of which bear the date of February 3d. I have also received several telegraphic despatches in relation to the same vessel from our very vigilant consul at Nantes. I have also received advices from our minister at Madrid, to the effect that a piratical vessel from Copenhagen has put into Ferrol for repairs, which vessel may or may not be the one to which your despatches refer. The knowledge of the affair which we have thus far been able to acquire is very vague and unsatisfactory. It is uncertain whether there are not at large two of the vessels built at Bordeaux for the insurgents, instead of one. We cannot certainly ascertain whether the vessel which was reported at Ferrol is the same vessel which is also reported at Corunna, under the name of the Shenandoah. We cannot definitely decide whether the Danish government has been derelict in the performance of international duty, nor will we for a moment believe that the French government has intentionally permitted its faith to be compromitted. We do not yet certainly know that the vessel or vessels in question have passed into the hands of the rebels. It is only in general terms, therefore, that I am able to write upon the subject, and what I do must be on condition that the facts represented shall be verified. I approve the communication you have addressed to Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys, and I sincerely hope that the next steamer may bring us intelligence that the Emperor's government has adopted effectual means to vindicate its sovereignty, and to defeat those of its subjects who have engaged in this new attempt to commit it to a war with the United States. You are authorized to say this to Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys, and to add that this government will expect indemnity for whatever injuries to the United States shall be inflicted by the pirate vessel in question from the parties to whom, in the end, the responsibility shall be traced; that after an endurance of covert war from the subjects of maritime states, of which we admit with pleasure that France has not been one, but which covert war has been rendered practically effective by the policy in which all the maritime states have hitherto concurred, in opposition to the unremitted remonstrances of the United States, this government now expects that the maritime powers will rescind all decrees, orders, and regulations, by which they concede belligerent naval privileges to vessels built, fitted out, armed and equipped in foreign states with which the United States are maintaining relations of peace and amity. I reserve more definitive instructions until we shall hear your report of the proceedings of the Emperor's government. I am, sir, your obedient servant, From the account which you give me of the state of opinion on American affairs now prevailing in Paris, I infer that there is less cause than heretofore for anxiety about our relations with the Emperor. If we can be fortunate enough to avoid actual collisions between the armed subjects or authorities of the European powers and our own, by sea as well as by land, time and events may then be expected to render casy of solution political questions which now it is even hazardous to touch. I trust that the affair of the Olinde may prove to be one in which we are to suffer no injury, and so have no cause of complaint against France. SIR: Your despatch of the 10th instant, No. 28, informing me of the movements of the insurgent vessel Stonewall, and suggesting that the commanders of |